UnReal World is a graphical Roguelike set in Finland in the iron age. It is more of a survival game than your usual hack 'n' slash RL.

At the beginning of a typical game, you'll find yourself in the middle of a vast, unfamiliar wilderness, carrying some food and basic equipment.

The immediate concern is survival. The player character needs food to survive, which can be obtained through hunting, fishing, foraging, trade or, in the longer term, agriculture. Water is also needed, but is readily available from the numerous lakes and rivers in the world, as long as one doesn't wander too far away from them without a filled waterskin.

You will probably spend some time exploring the surrounding world. During your travels, you can encounter a variety of animals (some dangerous, some not), hunters or adventurers (who you can sometimes convince to travel together with you), traders from foreign lands and the occasional hostile warrior of the Njerpez tribe (who compete with your people for hunting grounds). You may discover villages, where you can trade with the inhabitants, find healers to tend to your wounds or sages to teach you mystic rituals, and caves, which make convenient shelters from the weather (but may be already inhabited).

With time, seasons pass and eventually, the winter will arrive. The seasons have a major effect in the game. Plants will mature in the proper seasons, affecting your foraging prospects and agriculture. The fauna is also affected (e.g. bears hibernate during the winter, so you won't find them wandering around). With winter come a number of enviromental challenges: if you stay out in the cold too long, especially if you don't have proper, warm clothing, you'll get frostbite, and snow complicates movement - drudging through snow is tiring, but you can make and use skis to move faster and with less effort. Since obtaining food can be harder in the winter, you'll want to have a decent stack of food stored up and a warm shelter to spend the nights in ready before winter comes.

Character advancement in the game is based on a skill system. Your character has a number of attributes, which stay constant, but skills may improve through use.

The game is open-ended - there is no real goal beyond survival, and a game continues until your character dies.